Starting a long trip

DAY 1 - We're setting out on a 6-week trip to the west (again!). We drove from Dummerston to Swarthmore today - into the fiery furnace. When we left our house it was 74 degrees. We hit 101 degrees on the PA turnpike. Our host has air-conditioning, but actually, when we walked to the pizza parlor a bit ago it was fairly pleasant. We'll be here through Sunday morning. I think tomorrow is supposed to be a real scorcher! We may spend part of it in a movie theater. Let me slip in a couple of photos: the first is of Ellen's granddaughter, Tamar, in a musical she was in as part of a camp she did in Hadley, MA last week. The musical was Shiprock and Anchor Dog Include Everyone, written by the camp director who is also one of Tamar's teachers at her school - Hilltown Charter School. Tamar is wearing a dog mask.

The other photo is of Ellen's grandson Ben's bar mitzvah. This photo is of Ben's family, the Feinlands (Jerry, his father, Julie his mother (Ellen's daughter), Ben, sister Miriam and sister Tamar, plus his Feinland grandparents, Ray and Doris. Ben did himself proud in his transition from boyhood to adulthood. He handled it all with skill and poise. Ellen and I had a part in the ceremony too, which was very moving.

By the way, blogspot.com has changed its format and now I can't seem to be able to create spaces in a blog or control where to put photos. So, for example, on my composition page, there are about ten lines of space between "movie theater" and "Let me slip in . . ." (above). But on the blog page there is no space at all. So . . . I apologize for the peculiar formatting. Maybe eventually I'll figure it out.